welcome to the ilona show where we get the real headlines with none of the mercy we're going to live out of washington d.c. and tonight president obama is set to address the u.s. on the end of operation iraqi freedom but what will he say will he tell it success for a war that he wants opposed or will he look inwards towards the economy our to produce early enough we'll be here to discuss and as the combat missions have come to an end we have to reflect on what brought the us to iraq in the first place the reason for invading has clearly been discredited and many are still claiming that this is a foreign policy success so we're going to debate was this war really worth it also we're going to take an in-depth look on where the military is currently directing its efforts all eyes might be on iraq and afghanistan although the u.s. is involved in several other countries secretly targeting enemies who aren't

necessarily on the battlefield some of whom are even u.s. citizens they say oh you is putting its foot down on this one but will there challenge when we'll speak with former cia special agent jack rice then we're going to look back at the neo cons some of the architects of this war in iraq they were key players years ago when the war started but where are they now and how much influence do they still have we'll speak with national security researcher matt and is this the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning what iraqi journalist was asking that question trying to determine which type of turning point this drawdown really will be the start of democracy or the end of one so we're getting. newspapers take on all that but now let's move on to our top story. broke obama will give these second oval office speech of his presidency tonight about the end of the combat mission in iraq. now the speech will be just fifteen minutes long

perhaps not over blow this is a final victory speech since the american presence there is far from over but what will he say about a war that he didn't start and about the president who did it will he cast blame will he look back or will he tell the fulfillment of his promise and setting the time frame and sticking to it and is there anything that he could say to make the american people have hope that the war in afghanistan will also have an end of combat speech one day well joining me to discuss it is archie producer of lucy catherine of now lucy of course we haven't heard the speech yet he has yet to give it an eight o'clock tonight but can we at least assume that the president isn't going to make a victory speech here that will be smart enough not to do that i think both the white house and probably every intelligent p.r. person in the country has learned from george bush's infamous victory mission accomplished speech i mean the white house has been very clear this is not going to be a victory parade that they're going to say that you know essentially america reached

a milestone obama fulfilled his campaign promise of withdrawing troops by the august thirty first deadline so a few problems with that number one is the fact that nobody cares about this deadline you know people in the world especially in the muslim world care about a stable iraq in iraq where people could continue to go about their business to marry to essentially live in a free country which doesn't exist right now i mean that's the equivalent of you know a student who failed all of her classes going to pick up her diploma but showing up on time i mean the country that we broke remains not fully fixed it's not still broken and the second problem is that i mean you know we just because we remove all of the combat troops it's not mean that the war is over the war is not finished you know we still have soldiers there fifty thousand troops we still have tens of thousands of contractors americans will continue to die and we're going to continue to pour money that we don't have into a conflict half a world away so those are all things that we hope he actually addresses you know honestly truthfully tonight but what do you think he's going to say about president bush i mean we know that he called. i'm on the phone with her lawyer today but as

you can point a finger and say this is the bad guy this is the one that started it all i don't think so i mean the white house has been very quiet about this specific the specifics of what he spoke about with bush and what he's going to say i think that you know we can expect the president to say that there's been debate about the war over time but i doubt that he's going to make this into a political issue and you know mention bush's surge and you know give credit to that and so on and so forth but let's back up a minute here i mean the thing that really disturbs me is that you have all of these republicans and you know frankly all of the washington political press corps for that matter is sitting there with their panties in a bunch trying to figure out if obama's going to credit bush for the surge now this misses the broader picture the fact that bush led us to this war and we wouldn't be in iraq in the first place if it wasn't for bush so. we needed because we already started the war not quite as i mean i hope you grow some balls and. lays blame where blame is due but we know that this guy is very even tempered and probably will not wait into politics any more deeply than he has to do now you know more

than four thousand americans have died in this war so we have to assume that obviously he's going to somehow address their families address their sacrifice you know how is he going to stand up properly you know can he do it without also addressing the hundreds of thousands perhaps you know there's an estimate of civilian casualties in iraq i mean i don't know if he's going to bring up the civilian casualties or the refugees for that matter i think the estimate was something like two million iraqi refugees who have been displaced i mean. every american politician loves to think american troops and you know in all truth that's not necessarily their fault they went into a war there are people who are higher up who have made those decisions we know that he's going to thank the troops who spent all day with them at fort bliss thanking them for their service we know that he's going to talk about how al qaeda has been weak and then sort of establish all of the progress that's been made on the ground in iraq and you know still warn people that it's going to be a long hard slog but i think he's also going to bring up the fact that you know iraq still has a long way to go. but we still have this conflict in afghanistan and somehow

managed to also bring it all home to the economy and say that we need to focus at home so let's say i want to own fifty we only have fifteen minutes so how is he going to segue into afghanistan because essentially he's supposed to be saying see we're drawing down here it's not a mission accomplished we're getting somewhere and yet now they are drawing that is it is his iraq that is it is a whatever you want to call it is still going on and you know the troop surge there is only beginning so how is he going to win the white house hasn't been clear about you know how much time he's going to dedicate to afghanistan but we have to assume that he has to devote a significant chunk of time to this other war because you're dealing with an america that is exhausted it's a war weary america they don't want to see anymore conflicts you know they want to know how they can put food on their table keep their jobs and deal with you know the nine point six percent unemployment rate and staggering debt so he has a tricky ground to navigate here i mean he has to somehow convince americans that it's still ok to bear with him for a little bit longer while he finishes the so-called good war in afghanistan at the

same time he's dealing with a populace that frankly doesn't really care about abroad they want america to focus at home they want the president to focus on their problems domestic yeah and you know fact you know he's even getting a lot of flak for the fact that he's giving a speech from the oval office about the war when the economy is what americans care about most although i don't know if i agree with that statement thanks for filling us in i guess we'll just have to wait and see what the president actually says tonight thank you. now what i hope most of all obama will be honest and clear tonight clear about what still lies ahead for americans for their troops and of course for their pocketbooks but i think that a lot of americans are probably still a little bit fuzzy about the past fuzzy about why we invaded this country to begin with why the mission changed from preventing saddam hussein from using these.

imaginary weapons of mass destruction to bringing democracy to iraq and what any of that has to do with nine eleven so as the last combat troops depart we have to ask if the sacrifice of more than four thousand americans was worth it and joining me to discuss it is jon soltz co-founder and chair of vote vets dot org and dr james carafano senior defense policy analyst at the heritage foundation chairman thank you both for being here first of all i want to hear both of your opinions i mean i think we clearly know that the weapons of mass destruction in iraq never existed so why did we go to war in this country. i guess i'll start go ahead you know i guess it's to me it's very simple i think that you know we're in a situation after nine eleven where the president had the support of the american public to invade iraq they trumped up the weapons of mass destruction and they were wrong and they used it as a pretext to invade as part of a larger agenda to reshape the middle east that neo conservative strategy of

basically that comes from liberalism in foreign policy text which is democracy for peace theory of the american policy is to democratize for democratization middle east it is a failed strategy democracy in democracies does not prevent where we've seen it time and time again across the middle east it hasn't been a war with iraq it hasn't been a war with israel lebanon so the democracy for peace there is a dead theory and that agenda and that idea was sold to the bush administration they used as the pretext to start a war and so as we do actually completely agree right so we totally agree that the purpose of u.s. military forces is not to spread democracy around the world the u.s. military has only one purpose so provide for the common defense as described in the constitution you only use military forces when it's the nation's vital national interest we agree on that but so here is the one piece of the story that we all just jump over after nine eleven which is why did we get the story so wrong and we actually know a lot about this unbelievable. the story because all the intelligence that we

gathered after we invaded which is this incredible scheme that saddam hussein had to convince his country surrounding him and his enemies that he did have weapons of mass destruction even as he turned to international community and say he did so he wanted it both ways the problem with our intelligence community is they were reading the signals just as many of the signals that he said that he had weapons of mass destruction and he was hiding them now did they get the intelligence wrong you bet ok was there no damage to their sure ok but the intent was to use forces for vital national interest to protect them from iraq. it turned out they weren't there and there and here's the point ok there are those you know that so there are some words that one holiday is the overs in war if it's a you know this isn't this is only true this is the this is the debate i mean i debated this war now after i fought it for seven years and there are some people that believe that their rock was about national security the iraq war is about the american foreign policy agenda what the president is doing in afghanistan right now is no longer a national security and mission it is transformed into

a pro karzai democratization mission ok we are we are using force to create democracy that is neo con theory that came from liberalism democracies don't fight each other more this is what american foreign policy we're using our military to execute that foreign policy which is wrong and that's what we've done in both and i just wondered i mean i don't know i just have to understand this right ok so president obama is the two of the american deal cards thanks to president obama's policy in afghanistan as a program as a pro democracy it is a poison obviously didn't have it isn't it me who's not in your car insurgency losing out of the surgery but since you've already know how to handle other things shape question to you is do you feel that american troops should fight and die propping up for them obviously just like we have that we both know that i'm here as . right we agree you only use force vital national interest iraq was not in the know david letterman or when i did i mean are you telling me obama is just like this ok there is i question for every user you know. better off than her no she

answered the question is in the first place which is all that were they both using military force that they believed was in the vital national interest the united states my answer is yes your answer is both just neo cons but what i did not think there are in china i didn't mean to say i was doing exactly what i am getting and what bush said democratization that is in the policy of promoting democracy is the policy of this government and using military force and here's why we have transformed our mission in afghanistan from a counterterrorism mission to a counterinsurgency mission that is complete i want to mark let you talk. about while signing is it in our vital national security interest to invade this country because the president united states that iraq had weapons that they would use against the united states or give to a third party to use against united states he was wrong and he went to sell because one man you know no that's not the you know he has had i'm out in america now i know hundred thousand of them every month and i mean that i mean this is a total distortion of history first of all right many professionals in the

intelligence committee and they were wrong and they're not republican or democrat they thought that i you know i told the language i'm out on that you know it's true but the entire congress voted for the you know the fact let me get even let me finish pen they all voted out of their own intelligence to the hill there were no don rumsfeld they cherry pick the balance you know what i really care it is the question you're asking why can john walker lindh penetrate the taliban and me. and our american cia can't because we've so long relied on super duper satellite systems in the sky and all these different intelligence factors yet the one thing that we needed in iraq and the one thing we need to have cancer we didn't have which is human agents on the ground why is it that as soon as we captured treat disease that he was able to say the only reason saddam hussein projected the idea that he had w m d was because he was afraid of the iranians he was afraid of the kurds he was afraid of his own shia our intelligence agents there were people that believed in that theory but the d.o.d. that set up their own intelligence agency under the guidance of dick cheney and george bush cooked up this intelligence and convicts members of congress to support a war that was unnecessary as credit is that if they did come. this information

that they did try to pick and choose not to find one story that they could sell and that is history and there were stories that they sold to the press sold to the new york times for a small intelligence for a child would be for god sakes i'm going to be a criminal nobody's and we really need a job to sort of the road ok with the japanese bombed pearl harbor started world war two american intelligence thought the germans were behind it and overwhelmingly all americans thought the germans behind it and if germany had declared war on the united states we would have declared war injury and we would have been just as wrong about that as one word a would or could or should i don't hear so why are you talking about the past going on you want to seven years so let's talk about the future you know enough about the past combat mission supposedly over in iraq despite the fact that fifty thousand troops are still there what's now how many more people are going to die people have to understand that combat troops are still in iraq i mean just because we don't call them combat teams you have embitterment i'm sure we agree on this. special i mean they're all embedded within the iraqi units the most dangerous job in iraq is is driving trucks to take up some because

we're pretty damn safe i did truck ops in iraq very dangerous and so as we move our vehicles in and around our bases and we move stuff back down mcquay it's going to be very dangerous because a sense of the americans you provided a quirk on the violence in iraq is they're just waiting for us to leave so they can continue the war they've been fighting for hundreds of years you know as we pull out there will be increased violence u.s. troops will be in danger if the president sits there tonight and is not honest with the american public that the combat operations are not over that combat troops are still in iraq he will pay a severe price over time for that and i agree with you there i think i i hope that the president will leave me honest well look the american people you know in the eye through the television screen and get some truth there but let me ask you this one question because a lot of people are saying that the big word he's going to use is responsible you know that he fulfilled his promise in the sense that he responsibly pull of combat troops out of iraq and so now that our war there is dying down we can focus our money at home let's be real here how much money is still going to be going. towards

iraq still going to be paying for example of military contractors foreign contractors who we heavily depend on who we have no control over in terms of how they spend american money and i actually agree with you. i think that i would love i think his terminology is all wrong this is not i feel that this is not about a campaign promise that's ridiculous first of all war is a competition between two sides the enemy gets a vote right so you can make all the promises you want there are relevant no plan survives contact the president has only one job to protect the interests of the united states right that's what he should be talking about nobody cares about his campaign problems so he should be telling americans people is look my job is to protect you and look if your interest and here's what i'm going to do that's what he should be saying and at a time when the economy is in the tank should be he should he be thinking about their interests in terms of stopping spending so much money on the military it's not about military spending i don't think anybody in this country support for the troops in the military get what they need when you engage the military troops in foreign conflict it costs billions of dollars in trillions of dollars i mean there's a lot of conservatives in town that are pushing on this point strategy that he

bought into enough that's what cost money this country does not have the patience the money we have a shrinking gross domestic product a high unemployment rate now we're spending trillions of dollars trying to take afghans from the sixteenth century to the seventeenth century the reason he wants to give this species last twenty five soldiers in the last three days in afghanistan is afghanistan policy was dead on arrival when strategy does not work in town much you can't put six forgave them do anything in ten months i think we can agree on that so i think if you're going to make every look good that's right they absolutely where do. they think about it being here that it's time for a break with so to come tonight a look at the waste of the u.s. taxpayer dollars and not from prisons that never held prisoners to a new hospital that still isn't accepting any patients u.s. taxpayers have been on the hook for billions of dollars due to the chronic waste and bloat of the u.s. military machine and while this war is symbolically coming to an end the u.s. is still fighting secret wars around the globe i'll discuss that issue in a moment with former. cia agent and criminal defense attorney jack rice.

every month we give you the future we'll do understand how we'll get. to more. best in science and technology from across russia and around the world. knowledge on r.g.p. . when word first got out that soldiers in iraq were leaving seem to the troops were hosing a mega garage sale the way that they were getting rid of items everything from soap to beds to deep fryers are being sold to rocky's to then go on the black market or

a few things were sent to soldiers in afghanistan but your reports are showing an even deeper legacy of wasteful spending by the us most of which occurred during these reconstruction efforts for the country the u.s. vowed to help rebuild the war stricken country and with good intentions but the amounts of projects that are unfinished are simply astounding the u.s. poured forty million dollars into an unfinished prison that sits in the desert near baghdad and why is it unfinished well because a rocky's never wanted it in the first place and there is a water treatment facility in fallujah that's been in the works for five years costing over one hundred million dollars now this was supposed to reach over twenty four thousand homes but apparently there was nothing in the contract to create a pipeline from the plant to the homes so there's a good chance of this plant is going to help anyone except of course the contractors who got paid to build it now there's also an unfinished slaughter house in basra the cost of fire. million dollars but since there was no water supply

attached to that building well that's also pretty much useless and here's a sad one laura bush was working towards building a children's hospital in boston back in two thousand and four not hospital also has yet to be completed but has thus far cost one hundred and seventy million dollars and lastly the u.s. vowed to help iraqis by increasing the country's power generated after dumping almost five billion into that project well the outcome is pretty much atrocious only twenty percent of baghdad's restricts has functioning power stations so why why all the un finished work for a period of reconstruction is a combination of shoddy planning by u.s. insurgents blowing up construction already in progress and the fact that iraq these simply didn't want some of these structures so there you have it your taxpayer dollars hard work abroad helping contractors make millions.

now while the u.s. is ending its combat mission in iraq and continuing its war in afghanistan it's also waging shadow wars in over a dozen other countries of the topic that we've discussed on the show before but now comes new information the a.c.l.u. has now chalons chase off the joint special operations command right to engage in targeted killings outside of the battlefield they're basing their challenge on the public acknowledgement of jesus existence by two presidents on the acknowledgement by a presidential adviser that lists of human targets including u.s. citizens exist and on an acknowledgement by the director of national intelligence that yemen is a place where these targets could be quote gone after but will this be a successful challenge or will the u.s. be able to continue treating the entire world this battlefield or joining me from minnesota to discuss it is jack rice former cia special agent and criminal defense

attorney jack thanks so much for being here with me now first of all you recently were in iraq so i just want to know from your perspective from what you saw does that look like it's anywhere near over to you. no it's not over i mean with vice president biden talking about how much better it is he's correct if i take you back to two thousand and six when i was in western baghdad to the west things were a disaster so in comparison yes i guess we can give it two thumbs up but if we think about the number of people who continue to die the number of problems that still exist in frankly there's actually no government in place it is not for him since the elections in march we still have very very serious problems the americans may want to wipe their hands of this but let's be realistic they changed we certainly have an obligation based upon our decision to invade that country you can't simply walk away because we decided well we're bored you know an interesting point that i heard earlier i interviewed an iraqi journalist on tonight's show and

you know she brought up the idea too that vice president joe biden president barack obama they're not going to be calling this a a victory of course the end of the combat mission but in essence they are saying of this is a victory in the sense that al qaida has now been defeated in iraq which she as an iraqi found very ironic and frustrating because well al qaida was never in iraq in the first place to begin with before we got there and now al qaida clearly is not out of iraq and they are still there in fact so you know do you think that perhaps we may have made things worse for ourselves by going into iraq. i think in many ways we have because we have to think about this in a much larger context than just iraq our decision to go to the country has had a massive rippling effect across the entire middle east with more than one point two billion muslims in the world who saw that invasion in the first place and all of the promises in all of the justifications which came to not and then we look at

what happened afterward in afghanistan what it really shows what it really highlights a sort of incredible arrogance in one sense but also the futility of some of the things that we have done and how did the sausage this and the rap is that an american flag can put a little bow on it and say our work here is done it's almost laughable if it weren't so sad for the thousands of dead americans and the hundreds of thousands of gay rockies let alone afghans. now well the thing is you know we can say that this also is largely a distraction from the fact that while the war in afghanistan is nowhere near over and from the fact that you know there are these shadow war is that the u.s. is fighting in many other countries now the fact that jaison even the cia can fight on kind of wherever they feel like at the at somalia via yemen so you know did you ever think that barack obama would be the president to really expand this this shadow war. i think about

a opportunity i had i was i was in the white house in the press room when we were talking about what was going on at all greg and i still recall covering this president throughout the campaign as he was talking about transparency and the need for the american people to understand what is going on and then i was in the room at the white house when gibbs comes out his spokesman came up to me said well we've decided that all of those photos from all of the other evidence which is already out there in the middle east would not be released here so all of a sudden the new boss is a lot like the old boss that gave me my first him but if you talk about the targeted killing program this is something that i think is even more significant more seditious potentially because of what it means the people that you kill are not just on the battlefield in places like iraq and afghanistan he argument seems to be the give americans can kill anybody anyplace they want including the americans without transparency without due process and we simply have to believe

that the americans are doing the right thing as if they've ever made a mistake we would. now exact that you know i brought up or the a.c.l.u. is actually a challenging challenging them on this issue do you think they have any chance of succeeding here legally. this is going to be very very difficult because really what you need is you need judges to be able to step up and respond i mean one of the things we have seen especially after nine eleven was that it's almost as if the judiciary fell in line behind this argument from the government and we've seen this again and again and again that they argue national security and the judiciary simply falls away chaves saying bends over for the executive branch so we've seen this so many times it makes this absolutely an uphill battle but if we think about what the a.c.l.u. is arguing what they're saying is if we think about somebody like a locket get this american born cleric he's an american citizen who is someplace in

yemen right now and the argument is this he is doing some bad things apparently but what the americans have decided is they're going to kill him not on the battlefield not because he is coming after the americans right now but because they say he is a bad guy more importantly they're not going to provide any transparency to clarify why he is there are also not going to provide him any due process and believe it or not originally they were arguing that he was out how did up and since he was working with al qaida the a.c.l.u. couldn't even respond on his behalf to the u.s. government because that would be benefiting outa so they had she had to go to the white house go to the justice department and say would you let us at least make this argument now imagine how would you have an uphill battle to go beyond that to say why are you killing him and stop so the chances well are going to be difficult now it's definitely very disturbing but i hope that the a.c.l.u. succeeds here jack thanks so much for joining us. always

a pleasure i saw to come on tonight's show glenn beck star tool time winner of a not for his rally but the lack of a rock coverage on his new web site he's supposed to be covering the real issues and apparently iraq just isn't one of them and i will ask where the engine in the war in iraq are today will have a discussion on the neo cons and their current influence in washington d.c. policy circles.

and again this is own seat which all the headlines at home once the. president obama and live t.v. address says the rockies are responsible for their own future and the end of u.s. combat operations that means america can start focusing on economic recovery. dollars in any village a bullet to get a drug to commit suicide it knows they get an edge and eight craving that big and good will come of those sorts of. new designated gambling zones failed to get a whole big round in remote parts of the country plans and for russia and us they get. those the headlines from all seen on let's go back to they are going to shut. down.